The Social World

Category: International

  • Xi and Putin dabble in vampirism

    “They’re vampires” was my first thought. I had just heard the news that Putin and Xi were discussing how to prolong their lives, as they walked toward their places at the Tiananmen Square military parade. 

    On the official news footage, Putin’s translator could be heard saying in Chinese: “Biotechnology is continuously developing.” And then: “Human organs can be continuously transplanted. The longer you live, the younger you become, and [you can] even achieve immortality.” Xi responded: “Some predict that in this century humans may live to 150 years old.” Kim Jong-un was there too, but is not known to have contributed to the conversation.

    Maybe the blood-sucking image came to me because I was, when I heard this news, giving blood. My next thought was that it is the quintessence of secular individualism, to plot an attempt at immortality. It is a statement that one’s life is an entity unto itself, isolated from human community. Also, vampirism was an image favored by Karl Marx, in his description of capitalism. 

    In Capital, for example, he describes capital as “dead labour, that, vampire-like, only lives by sucking living labour, and lives the more, the more labour it sucks.” So it is interesting that these three men grew up under communism. It would seem that the ideology had no real substance, no moral force.

    By the way, I rather enjoyed giving blood. After a nice summer break, things were feeling a bit oppressive over here in London, a city of strangers, elbowing each other out of the way. And it cheered me up, a friendly chat with a nice young nurse, and a sense of local community, of shared values. I’d feel differently if I was being paid for my blood: I’d feel resentful of the person who could afford to buy it from me. I’d feel that we were rivals, competing for resources.

    The immortality story featured on the evening news, as part of the general coverage of the military parade. The next item was our head of state, King Charles III, visiting a hospital in Birmingham, a visit delayed by his own cancer treatment. Unlike those Oriental despots, our monarch displays the vulnerability that he shares with the rest of us. 

    If he and his son William were overheard discussing prolonging their lives through organ donation, the monarchy would be over. He said to one patient: “Hips don’t work so well, do they, once you get past 70?” I might live in a palace, he was saying, but I share your knowledge of bodily infirmity, vulnerability.

    I was also reminded of another king, David. He committed a sort of act of vampirism, bedding another man’s wife, and getting the man killed in battle. It was an act of total selfishness, a denial of common humanity. And he repented, and his change of heart resulted in the poetry of the Psalms, an ur-text of common human vulnerability. Let these men have a change of heart, one that does not involve literal organ transplants.

  • The death throes of free speech in Britain – and its opponents

    Free speech, the very bedrock of constitutional democracy, is writhing on its deathbed in England. It will take a mass movement to restore its vitality. Fortunately, one can see that movement emerging among a once-free people, tired of government suppression.

    The dire state of British liberties was outlined Wednesday in Congressional testimony by British MP, Nigel Farage, who testified before the US House Judiciary Committee. He was backed by the committee’s Republican members and attacked, alas, by Democrats. 

    Powerful as his testimony was, it was overshadowed by an even more striking event: a phalanx of armed police arriving at Heathrow airport to arrest an Irish comedian for a tweet he posted in Arizona. His crime: he made fun of transgender people. Toss him in the dungeon.

    This is the same law enforcement, mind you, that ignored decades of child rape and “grooming” by Pakistani Muslims in northern England. 

    How is the lax treatment of grooming gangs connected to the harsh treatment of tweeting? By more than the lunacy and hypocrisy. The deeper connection is that successive Labour and Conservative governments have considered it more important to “protect” minority groups against bad words and criminal investigations than to protect innocent children or ensure free speech and open inquiry. “Social justice,” don’t you know?

    The collapse of free speech, under the repressive hand of British government, is deeply linked to the massive influx of immigrants from North Africa and the Middle East, who have little interest in adapting to English laws and customs and every interest in protecting the customs of their native lands. They have consistently refused to adopt the basic ideals of tolerance and forbearance that are fundamental to any functioning multicultural democracies.

    Instead of pushing back against this illiberal tide – an essential task if liberal democracy is to survive – political leaders in the UK and most of Western Europe have appeased it. Just as bad, they have suppressed any opposition.

    The common theme among these feckless leaders is their lack of confidence in their own cultural traditions and historic national achievements. They have refused to stand up for those basic values and traditions in the face of ferocious, illiberal assaults, stemming mainly from these hostile immigrant communities, often supported by progressive elites, who share the leaders’ lack of cultural self-confidence. Instead of resisting these illiberal assaults, halting immigration, and limiting the lifelong provision of free housing and income, those leaders have acceded to these demands and smacked down anyone who says different. The price has been enormous.

    How bad is it? Bad enough that people are now being arrested in England and Scotland for putting up flags or wearing them on their clothes. Waving the national flag is somehow considered an insult to immigrants. This show of patriotism must be stopped and the miscreants arrested.

    These arrests do more than crush free speech. They also deter free assembly, or at least they are intended to do so, if that assembly opposes government policy. But the right to assemble peacefully to protest government policy is the very essence of a functioning democracy.

    The connection between speech and assembly is often overlooked, but it is crucially important. It is free assembly – mass crowds, mobilized around political demands – that threaten governments. That is why the two rights, speech and assembly, are paired in the First Amendment to the US Constitution. That is why their absence in English law is so devastating. Their absence gives free rein to a repressive government. That is exactly what is happening now in England and Scotland.

    The right to speak openly and assemble freely, allow citizens to voice their opinions, demonstrate the intensity of those views, protest some government policies and advocate others, and express those opinions without seeking permission from the very government they may be contesting.

    The British, who have no written constitution or bill of rights, give no such protections to their citizens, either in theory or in practice. That is why today’s repressive governments can treat citizens like subjects, to be suppressed or arrested when they say something objectionable to those in power. What is objectionable? We in power will decide. Not you.

    It is a special tragedy to see this repression take place in England, the fountainhead of free speech and assembly in western civilization. The theory was best stated in John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty (1859), with roots that run back two centuries to John Locke and still further to the Glorious Revolution and Magna Carta. Mill’s vital points are that ideas need to withstand the test of counter-arguments and best evidence, that multiple views need to be heard and tested, and that citizens can then reach their own, informed judgments.

    The wisdom of Mill’s analysis was not limited to his book or the scholarly discourse it prompted. It was already embedded in Parliamentary debate, public speeches, and the free publication of newspapers and magazines.

    This open discourse is a magnificent achievement and a historically rare one. Few countries have ever permitted it, and it is in jeopardy now in the very birthplace of these freedoms, trampled by ignorant and malign political leaders. It’s easy to see why those in power don’t want to hear opposing voices or critical tweets. They don’t say so plainly, of course. They prefer to wrap themselves in the high-flying moral language of “social justice.” Whatever the justification, they use the full repressive weight of state power to smash alternative views. They alone decide which views are permissible.

    They shouldn’t be allowed to get away with this power grab – this blatant suppression of basic democratic rights. Politicians, bureaucrats, and police shouldn’t decide what can be said and what must be silenced. Not in a free country. They shouldn’t be allowed to turn the birthplace of liberty into its charnel house.

  • Will Trump cripple Brazil if Jair Bolsonaro is found guilty?

    Will Trump cripple Brazil if Jair Bolsonaro is found guilty?

    The trial of Brazil’s former right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro on charges of plotting a coup to topple the current President Lula da Silva is entering its final stages.

    Bolsonaro, 70, and seven co- defendants are accused of conspiring to oust Lula, the veteran left-winger who narrowly beat him in the 2022 Presidential election. The Supreme Court in Brasilia will consider its verdict this week. If – as expected – the court convicts Bolsonaro, the ailing ex-President is looking at a lengthy jail sentence, and may die in prison as a result. Bolsonaro has been in poor health since he was stabbed in the abdomen in an assassination attempt while campaigning during his successful bid for the presidency in 2018.

    Such an outcome will not only dismay Bolsonaro and his many supporters in Brazil: it will also enrage US President Donald Trump, who has condemned the trial as a “witch hunt” against his ideological soulmate – and has threatened to impose punitive 50 percent tariffs against Lula’s Brazil in response.

    Bolsonaro is already under house arrest at his Brasília home and is forced to wear an ankle tag. The sanctions were imposed by the court after the ex- President attempted to seek political asylum in right wing President Javier Milei’s Argentina.

    The coup charges stem from a mass riot in January 2023 when thousands of Bolsonaro supporters stormed federal government buildings calling for the military to take over and oust Lula. That riot reminded many observers of the January 2021 rampage in Washington when hundreds of Trump supporters swarmed into the Capitol building in an unsuccessful effort to prevent President Biden taking over from Trump. President Trump pardoned those protesters jailed for insurrection over the riot when he was re-elected for his second term.

    Brazil is especially sensitive to talk of coups since the vast country – Latin America’s largest state by far – was ruled by a military dictatorship for 21 years between 1964 and 1985 after another elected left-wing President Joao “Jango” Goulart was deposed in a coup. Goulart died in exile in Argentina in 1976, officially of a heart attack, though many believe he was poisoned on the orders of the military junta.

    Bolsonaro, himself a former Army captain, was an outspoken supporter of the military dictatorship. He still retains much support among conservative Brazilians, and recent polls show that around 40 percent of people believe he is being unjustly persecuted by Lula’s regime. His condemnation would risk more violence and disorder in the streets.

    The legal authorities in Brazil have certainly given the former President no favours or granted him any allowances respecting his age and ill health. They have even forbidden Bolsonaro from contacting his son Edouardo, who is himself an aspiring right-wing politician.

    The harsh treatment reflects the social divisions in Brazil generated during the former President’s controversial time in office.

    If Bolsonaro is convicted and jailed as seems likely, and Trump follows through on his Tariff threats, it will put the US on a collision course with yet another Hispanic country, and this time with one that is the most powerful of them all.

  • Don’t hold your breath for a Chinese-led world order

    Today’s vast military parade in Beijing is the climax of three days of political theatre orchestrated by President Xi Jinping, with supporting roles played by those pantomime villains Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un. The smirking North Korean and Russian dictators joined Xi to witness the People’s Liberation Army’s goose-stepping soldiers and shiny weaponry rumbling through Tiananmen Square. “Today, humanity is again faced with the choice of peace or war, dialogue or confrontation, win-win or zero-sum,”  Xi told the crowd of some 50,000 carefully selected spectators (which roughly matched the number of soldiers). He said the Chinese people “firmly stand on the right side of history.”

    Xi warned that China was “unstoppable” and is “never intimidated by bullies” before climbing on the back of an open-top car to inspect what seemed like miles of hardware lining Chang’an Avenue, warplanes flying overhead. China’s military expansion and modernization is racing ahead at a rate rarely seen in peacetime, and today’s show, reckoned to be China’s largest-ever military parade, was a showcase of some of the results, designed to throw the gauntlet down to the West.

    Western military attaches will no doubt be doing their own forensic inspections of Xi’s new kit, which included sea drones and multiple missile systems, among them intercontinental ballistic missiles designed to reach the United States. It also included cruise missiles and an array of anti-ship missiles, dubbed “carrier killers,” whose purpose is to deter American involvement in a war over Taiwan.

    It was the first time Xi, Putin and Kim had met together publicly, and in many ways it was a clarifying moment to witness as they walked shoulder to shoulder, the three protagonists of the Ukraine war. Putin, its architect; Kim, who is providing weapons and soldiers; and Xi, who is underwriting the whole enterprise through his economic support for Moscow.

    The parade, which lasted around 90 minutes, was supposed to mark the 80th anniversary of Japan’s surrender and the end of the Second World War. In fact, the Chinese Communist Party played only a marginal role in defeating Japan, with its rivals, the nationalist Kuomintang, doing most of the fighting. Mao Zedong cynically calculated that Japan would weaken his opponents, who could then be more easily defeated in the Chinese civil war. Mao would later confess that the communists would never have won without the Japanese invasion, going so far as thanking Japan’s prime minister Kakuei Tanaka for his “help” in defeating the nationalists, according to a memoir by Mao’s personal physician.

    Even the stars of today’s show – Xi, Putin and Kim – have deep mutual suspicions

    In the run-up to the parade, a propaganda blitz has attempted to portray the victory over Japan as a “people’s war of resistance” against Japan, whipping up a frenzy of nationalist sentiment, which has resulted in Tokyo expressing concern for the safety of its nationals in China. Last month, a Japanese women and her child were attacked in a subway station in Suzhou, one of a growing list of violent anti-Japanese incidents, which included the stabbing to death of a 10-year-old Japanese boy near a Japanese school in the same city.

    The 26 world leaders who attended the parade were mostly a familiar line-up of authoritarian faces, though they included Serbia’s Russia-friendly president Alexandar Vucic and Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico. Sharp-eyed Australians also spotted Daniel Andrews, a former Labor premier of Victoria, standing sheepishly at the back of a family photograph, with Xi, Putin and Kim to the fore. This is causing a storm down under.

    Today’s parade follows a meeting in Tianjin of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), a usually dozy talking shop, whose members include Russia, China and countries of central and south Asia. Xi used the platform to make his most audacious bid so far for world leadership. He criticized “bullying” and gave a woolly vision of a new China-centric world order to challenge the United States. The most significant images of the event were those of Narendra Modi, India’s prime minister cozying up to Putin and Xi.

    Some commentators have been quick to proclaim this week’s theatre as a seminal moment, of Donald Trump’s comeuppance, and Xi’s new world order becoming a reality. Not so fast. Wily and transactional leaders of the “global south,” while hardly enamored of Trump, are not about to ditch the American “hegemon” in favor of a Chinese one. Modi feels bruised and intimidated by his treatment by Trump but is sending a message to Washington, playing a game. His suspicions of China, with whom India fought a brief border war just five years ago, run deep and won’t be salved by Xi’s empty words at Tianjin. The SCO itself is riven with divisions; the former Soviet States of central Asia, each with big Russian-speaking populations, are deeply uneasy about Russia’s aggression in Ukraine.

    Even the stars of today’s show – Xi, Putin and Kim – have deep mutual suspicions. Putin was very much the supplicant in Beijing, bringing a host of officials with him from the oil, gas and arms industries, and even the governor of Russia’s central bank. All an expression of just how dependent he has become on Chinese support. Russia was quick to announce new deals on a much-delayed gas pipeline; China said little, since much of the detail, notably the price of the gas, has yet to be worked out.

    It’s fair to speculate as to whether Xi felt any unease today about the loyalty of the troops he was inspecting, having purged a swath of top military leaders in recent months – including the top echelons of the Rocket Force, which oversees those shiny new missiles. Today’s display, and Xi’s fiery words, certainly invoked visions of 1930s Germany, but it would be premature to proclaim the start of the new world order that China’s leader so craves.

  • As an American Anglophile, I can’t defend Britain

    For much of my career, beginning as a foreign adviser to the U.S. Congress, I have proudly stood as one of America’s strongest advocates for Britain. 

    I have defended her history, her institutions and her role as the original home of liberty. 

    I have championed the UK in forums throughout the US and in publications across the globe, reminding audiences that our shared values of liberty and democracy, bequeathed by our mother, England, form the bedrock of transatlantic strength. 

    Today, for the first time, I find Britain indefensible. The affection and historical respect remains. The confidence is gone.  

    Britain now prosecutes her own citizens not for violence or treason but for words. Lucy Connolly was sentenced to 31 months in prison for a tweet in the wake of the Southport tragedy; she served ten. 

    Her crime was expression, harsh perhaps but still speech. Graham Linehan, the award‑winning creator of Father Ted, was arrested at Heathrow by armed officers with guns for online comments defending women’s spaces. Arrested, by police carrying weapons, for his opinions. 

    This is the country that once gave the world John Stuart Mill.  

    Such cases expose what Britain has become: a two‑tier system of justice. Those branded far‑right, nationalist or “Islamophobic” are prosecuted with zeal. Those spreading incendiary rhetoric from Islamist or minority factions are met with indulgence. The 2024 riots exposed the imbalance in plain sight. Swift punishment for those the state distrusts. Hesitation and leniency for those it fears. Law as weapon, not protection.  

    This has not happened by accident. Britain’s institutions have been captured. Its police, judiciary and permanent bureaucracy answer less to the people than to a class of activists embedded at the top. 

    Leading them is a man who knows the law not as a shield for the people but as a sword for ideology: Keir Starmer. Starmer did not merely elevate activist lawyers to high office. He is one. He has built his career knowing how to bend legal frameworks into blunt instruments. Now in Downing Street he deploys those instruments against the liberties Britain once bequeathed the world.  

    A particularly chilling example lies in the push to enshrine a definition of “Islamophobia.” What is presented as tolerance is in practice a new blasphemy law, criminalizing criticism of religion and culture whenever it offends official sensitivities. The land that abolished the Star Chamber is now flirting with prosecuting thought crimes.  

    The suspicion of national pride runs just as deep. During the 2024 riots, Starmer cautioned against using the St George’s Cross or the Union Jack “divisively.” To ordinary Britons these flags are symbols of unity and heritage. To their government they are red flags of extremism. 

    Meanwhile, foreign flags fly freely across London without question. The message is unmistakable: pride in your own country is suspect. Allegiance to any other is acceptable.  

    Immigration policy tells the same story. Labour boasts of progress, yet more than 32,000 asylum seekers remain in taxpayer‑funded hotels at a cost of £2.1 billion a year. Whole communities are expected to accept disruption without complaint, and if they speak out they are branded intolerant. Concerns about security or cohesion are brushed aside as if no decent Briton could possibly hold them.  

    From abroad the shift is impossible to ignore. Elon Musk has called Britain’s censorship Soviet‑style. JD Vance has condemned its crackdown on speech. The US State Department now lists Britain as a country presenting significant risks to free expression. I never imagined America would place Britain alongside nations that treat liberty as a nuisance. That day has come.  

    For those of us who have long defended Britain, it is heartbreaking. This is the country whose strong institutions enabled America’s own rise and whose commitment to liberty inspired ours. Yet under its current leadership Britain has stumbled into repression, constraint and fear, where ordinary citizens look over their shoulders before speaking.  

    And still there is a chance for recovery. A counter‑movement exists. Figures such as Nigel Farage, Robert Jenrick, Ben Habib and the Reform UK party speak plainly about borders, free speech and sovereignty. They refuse to accept that patriotism is extremism or that questioning official orthodoxy is hate. For this they are demonized by the governing elite, but for this they are listened to by ordinary citizens who have had enough and are reasserting their national pride as manifested in the tidal wave of Union and St. George flags that have flooded cities throughout the UK through efforts such as Operation Raise the Colors. 

    Britain must decide. It can continue down its present course, where speech is policed, justice is politicised and Starmer’s legal class governs not on behalf of the nation but against it. Or it can remember its own inheritance, trusting its people and restoring freedom as the organizing principle of national life.  

    The world does not need a Britain that jails her patriots. It needs the Britain that once taught us all to be free.

  • Why Putin is so chipper in China

    The often dour Vladimir Putin is looking very cheery in China, which has just hosted the summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in Tianjin to the north, and is preparing for a grand parade to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War in Beijing tomorrow.

    While Xi Jinping is clearly the man of the hour, Vladimir Putin seems to be having a good trip, too. Even as his Alaska summit saw him getting the literal red carpet treatment from Donald Trump, this is a chance to underline the degree to which Western efforts to isolate him really just mean that most European leaders are giving him hard stares. Indian prime minister Narendra Modi, whose country continues to buy Russian oil despite punitive US sanctions, hopped into his (Russian-made) Aurus limousine for what ended up being an almost hour-long one-to-one chat. Putin has also had meetings with other leaders, from Turkey’s Erdogan and Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian, to Vietnamese prime minister Phạm Minh Chính.

    Beijing is clearly pitching the SCO as the basis for an alternative global order, one in contrast to an existing one that the Chinese (and, frankly, many others in the Global South, or what Putin has taken to calling the World Majority) regard as built by the West to protect the West’s interests. The corollary, of course, is that the new system would be for Beijing’s convenience, but at present Putin doesn’t seem to have a problem with that.

    This is actually an issue on which there is a growing behind the scenes debate within the Russian elite. For Putin and his septuagenarian circle of cronies, all that really matters is winning (whatever that may mean) in Ukraine, and whatever compromises need to be made to that end are worth it. After all, Putin’s historical legacy, political credibility and perhaps even survival are all at stake. For the next political generation, the 50- and 60-somethings waiting, sometimes a little impatiently for their time in the sun, and whose horizons extend rather further, the danger that Russia will have already become a vassal of China’s by the time they take power is a worrying one. For now, though, Putin doesn’t want to hear it. China is necessary for his war, and that’s that.

    Xi Jinping is clearly the man of the hour, Vladimir Putin seems to be having a good trip, too

    Besides, events like the SCO summit allow him to hold forth on his usual concerns to a largely supportive audience. In his address, Putin pleased Xi by arguing that “the SCO could take a leading role in forming a fairer system of global governance. A system that would replace the obsolete Eurocentric and Euro-Atlantic models, would take into account the interests of a wide range of countries, that would be truly balanced. It would not allow attempts by some states to ensure their security at the expense of the security of others.”

    Except, a cynic might note, for Ukraine. However, this war was also the fault of those pernicious Westerners: “the crisis arose not as a result of Russia’s attack, but as a result of the coup d’etat in Ukraine, which was provoked by the West. And then by attempts to suppress the resistance of those regions in Ukraine that did not support this coup. The second reason for the crisis is the West’s constant attempts to draw Ukraine into Nato, which poses a direct threat to Russia’s security.”

    Putting aside the precise characterization of the 2014 “Revolution of Dignity” which did, in fairness, topple a corrupt but democratically elected president, and the mischaracterization of Ukraine’s relationship with Nato – it was always Kyiv beating on the door, with the Western alliance prevaricating – this is a line which works especially well at such gatherings for two reasons. Firstly, it allows Putin to flatter his hosts and peers, expressing his appreciation their efforts to address what he calls the “root causes” of the crisis (and which Kyiv would describe as its rights as a sovereign nation). Secondly, it speaks to a powerful current of not so much anti-Western feeling (though there is much of that, exacerbated by Trump’s tariff extravaganza) as growing self-confidence in the rest of the world.

    There was, after all, a prevailing sense that the future is theirs in a bloc which accounts for more than half of the world’s population and about a third of its GDP, with an average economic growth last year exceeding 5 percent. 

    For Putin, faced with the daily evidence of the mounting problems facing Russia, it makes sense to be in a club where Russia still matters, where the mood is optimistic, and where most agree – or at least are not there and then going to disagree – with what he has to say.

  • Has Xi Jinping been reduced to a figurehead?

    China will celebrate the 80th anniversary of the end of the “war of resistance against Japanese aggression” (i.e. what we call VJ day) tomorrow. Given that Japan’s invasion of China started some four years earlier than Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbour in 1941, and cost an estimated 20 to 30 million Chinese lives, this week’s military parade is a major milestone. As the People’s Liberation Army Daily newspaper has explained:

    “One of the highlights is a grand military parade at Beijing’s Tian’anmen Square themed on commemorating the great victory and promoting the enduring spirit of the War of Resistance.”

    Not surprisingly, China is pushing the boat out in terms of its invitation list. It includes 16 presidents and ten other world leaders. Apart from the president of Serbia, Aleksander Vucic, and the prime minister of Slovakia, Robert Fico, European leaders will be notable for their absence.

    Most importantly, the attendance of Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un as guests of honor is being heralded as a diplomatic coup for Xi Jinping by much of the West’s media. Thus, the BBC, reflecting its dislike of Donald Trump, has gleefully headlined one of its pieces “Xi shows Trump who holds the cards as he sets up meeting with Kim and Putin.”

    But is it a triumph? Or are Putin and Kim coming to the party to find out if Xi is still running China? Since July this year there have been two conflicting narratives about what is going on in the opaque world of Chinese politics.

    One narrative, largely proposed by new media, notably expat Chinese watchers and academics hostile to China, who rely on discretely relayed inside information, suggests that Xi is now just a figurehead; he is in power but not in office. The other narrative, largely supported by Chinese and western legacy media, reports that nothing has changed; for them, Xi is still the all-powerful authoritarian leader who broke the mould by organizing an unprecedented third five-year term as general secretary of the Chinese Communist party (CCP). Britain’s Economist magazine has recently opined that “there is no immediate threat to Mr. Xi’s leadership.”

    The “Xi has lost power” narrative proposed by the new media world is as follows. At or shortly after the 3rd CCP plenum in July 2024, Xi Jinping, overweight and reputedly a heavy drinker of Kweichow Moutai – the most expensive brand of baiju, a hard liquor distilled from sorghum and wheat – reportedly had a health scare and was taken to hospital. These reports have not been confirmed. But video footage of Xi’s recent trip to Tibet suggests that he is not a healthy man. His wobbling gait was painful to watch.

    In his absence, Xi’s enemies pounced. The coup is said to have been led by the Central Military Commission (CMC) vice chairman Zhang Youxia. This highly regarded military leader, a princeling like Xi, and a rare veteran of military action in the China-Vietnam War, had provided the military backing that underwrote Xi’s taking of a third term of office. Subsequently, their relationship faltered. Seemingly, Zhang had argued with Xi about the advisability of a high-risk military attempt to take Taiwan.

    Xi, who, from his public utterances, seemed to see the re-taking of Taiwan as the fulfillment of his legacy to “restore the nation,” “helicoptered” Fujian clique ally General He Weidong into the co-vice chairmanship of the CMC. Zhang found himself surrounded by Xi’s appointees.

    One narrative suggests that Xi is now just a figurehead; he is in power but not in office

    But now, an isolated Zhang is said to have taken his chance to save his own skin by launching a coup against Xi’s loyalists in the military. Admiral Miao Hua, another member of Xi’s Fujian clique, was suspended in November 2024 and removed from the CMC in June. Even more dramatically, in March, He Weidong disappeared. Strangely, neither of these CMC members seems to have been replaced.

    Over the last year, dozens of high-ranking officers have been dismissed or have disappeared, mainly on grounds of corruption. Albeit an endemic problem in the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) it seems likely that the charges of corruption have been a cover for a purge of Xi’s military allies. Most notable has been the sacking of the generals who led the Rocket Force, which was particularly close to Xi.

    The Chinese leader’s high-profile wife, Peng Liyuan, has also largely disappeared from public view. She is a famous Chinese folksinger whom Xi incongruously promoted to the rank of major general and to a key role in the CMC’s opaque cadre selection committee. General Zhang Youxia was reportedly furious that promotions and appointments in the army were being made by a celebrity singer. As for Xi, he has not attended a CMC meeting for a year.

    Zhang’s alleged move has allowed Xi’s political enemies to come out of the shadows. Hu Jintao, Xi’s predecessor as general secretary, who was shockingly manhandled out of the 20th CCP congress on Xi’s orders, has reemerged as a leading figure in the cabal seeking to overthrow the General Secretary. His liberal Communist Youth League faction is now in the ascendancy.

    In addition, the “princelings,” the name given to the Red aristocracy that emerged from the early political and military leaders of the CCP, have come out in force to criticize Xi’s building of a Mao-style personality cult. These include Deng Pufang, son of Deng Xiaoping, the supreme leader who banned Mao’s personality cult. Deng Pufang’s back was broken when he was thrown off a roof by red guards during Mao’s Cultural Revolution. No wonder that he and many other princelings who were banished to the countryside during the cultural revolution baulked at Xi’s return to Maoist authoritarianism.

    Though Jiang Zemin, former general secretary between 1989 and 2002, died in November 2022, his Shanghai faction continues to have a presence. They are thought to be jockeying for position in case of a restructuring of the Politburo’s current all-powerful seven-man standing committee.

    The factions opposed to Xi are said to have agreed on a few policies. Xi’s Mao-style personality cult must not be repeated; the restoration of a maximum of two five-year terms for a general secretary has been agreed; the CCP will return to Deng Xiaoping’s liberal reform path; and Xi’s foreign policy, which has generated a great deal of pushback in both Asia and the west, should become less aggressive.

    Supposedly not yet decided by the opposition factions is whether Xi Jinping should be replaced immediately or at the 20th CCP congress in 2027. It seems likely that General Zhang would like a rapid resolution of the leadership issue. As the leader of what has, in essence, been a military coup, he knows that his head is on the line. A Xi comeback could end his life.

    By contrast Hu Jintao, for the sake of party stability and public face, would reputedly like Xi to continue as a “figurehead only” leader until the next congress. The situation is complicated by the fact that potential Xi replacements are thought to be reluctant to become CCP general secretary unless they are also appointed to Chairmanship of the CMC.

    Historically, this is not surprising. The only two general secretaries who did not hold the chairmanship of the CMC were sacked from office; Hu Yaobang in 1987 and Zhao Ziyang in 1989. Both these leaders were removed by Deng Xiaoping, who never held the post of CCP general secretary; Deng’s role as China’s supreme leader rested solely on his chairmanship of the CMC from 1981 to 1989 – a clear indication that, in China, the ultimate ring of power is held by the army.

    In July, it was noted that at the dinner held to celebrate the 98th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, several of Xi’s enemies were seated on top tables. The biggest surprise was the reappearance of General Liu Yuan. After disputes with Xi Jinping, Liu made a dramatic resignation from the PLA in 2015.

    The Chinese leader’s high-profile wife, Peng Liyuan, has also largely disappeared from public view

    Liu is the son of Liu Shaoqi, who succeeded Mao as chairman of the People’s Republic of China. Liu Shaoqi was subsequently arrested and killed during the Cultural Revolution. His crime was to favor liberalization of the Chinese economy. Indeed, during the Cultural Revolution, Mao referred to Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping as the “number one and number two capitalist roaders.” The reemergence of General Liu Yuan after a 10-year interval seems to confirm the dramatic political shift back to the ‘capitalist roader’ path forged by Deng Xiaoping.

    Given the parallel but opposing narratives of current Chinese politics, China watchers will be fixated on what happens at tomorrow’s military parade. Protocols and placements at the parades and dinners will be analyzed in detail. Some have even suggested the possibility of a coup.

    This seems highly unlikely. Instead, China watchers should wait for the 4th plenum of the 20th congress. It was announced on July 30 that this will take place in October. If there are major changes in the Chinese leadership before the 21st CCP congress in 2027, they are most likely to take place at a plenum session of which there are usually seven during a five-year National Congress term.

    The most talked-about successors to Xi are Hu Chunhua and Wang Yang. Hu, an acolyte of Hu Jintao and his Communist Youth League faction, is a liberal who was surprisingly pushed out of the Politburo’s Standing Committee at the 20th national congress in 2022. Wang Yang, another liberal and a former Standing Committee member, was similarly discarded when Xi embarked on his third term of office.

    These are interesting times in China; perhaps President Trump should have accepted the Chinese invitation to attend the September 3 celebrations after all – if only to get a peek inside the secret world of Chinese politics.

  • True winners steal from children

    True winners steal from children

    “Sack of garbage,” “common thief,” “shameful jerk” – but a few of the choice words tennis fans had for the man who swiped an autographed hat from a child at the US Open over the weekend.

    Sure, the alleged thief is no saint. But now that he’s reportedly been identified as a self-made millionaire, I’d rather just call him a shark.

    The video of the courtside incident quickly went viral, showing a grown man snatch the hat away as Polish tennis star Kamil Majchrzak passed it up to a boy who pleaded in vain. The internet did as it wont, and identified the alleged thief as pavement plutocrat and fellow Pole, Piotr Szczerek.

    What is this world coming to? A man can’t even steal from a child anymore without having his whole life dissected by an internet mob. But the more you dig into the details, it’s clear that Szczerek is actually kind of impressive.

    Pavement is a big industry in Poland, apparently. I guess it makes sense – what else is there to do in the bleak decay of Eastern Europe besides endlessly mix concrete? With the keen instincts of a soon-to-be tycoon, Szczerek and his wife launched their paving company in the 90s and built an empire from the ground up. As CEO, he’s now deemed a “leader in the industry” by Polish media, and even funds youth tennis leagues.

    Snatching trophies of conquest simply comes natural to a guy like this. It’s a courtside feeding frenzy, after all: athletes walk over amped up from battle, and fans clamor desperately for a hand shake, an autograph, a sweaty head band. In the heat of the moment, it’s survival of the fittest. And you can’t expect a shark to have a moral code.

    A Great White doesn’t hang back to give lesser predators their fair chance; he swoops in for the kill. This cut throat ruthlessness is the hallmark of winners, conquerors and millionaire CEOs the world over, and the drive that let Szczerek succeed in business is the same one that kicked in courtside. Even in Gucci tennis shorts, killer instincts are not so easily suppressed.

    But an alpha is nothing without his mate. Szczerek passed the hat to his wife, who dutifully shoved it into her designer handbag, as he went back for a second bite at an autographed water bottle. There’s a lesson for the ladies here, too: stand by your man.

    Of course a guy like this isn’t going to just roll over under a little scrutiny. If you can find a way to capitalize off the fall of communism, you can survive a few internet trolls.

    “Yes, I took it. Yes, I did it quickly. But as I’ve always said, life is first come, first served,” Szczerek apparently said in defiance in a now deleted post.

    “It’s just a hat. If you were faster, you’d have it,” the post added, while audaciously dangling the threat of legal action against the haters in his dm’s.

    How many nebbish western CEOs have we seen cave to the mob in recent years? Szczerek’s bold aggression is wasted in far-off Poland. Maybe if he was heading the NFL, we’d all be spared the indignity of twink cheerleaders shaking their asses on the sidelines.

    You can’t blame a shark for going after its prey. Still, it doesn’t hurt to show a little noblesse oblige, as Szczerek eventually (kind of) did with an overdue apology.

    We love to talk about the “based” Poles, one of the last bastions of sanity amidst an EU lost to gay race communism. But we forget that Poland’s not exactly first world. Millions of Polish złoty only go so far without some good English manners.

    A grown man clamoring like a groupie is more than a little undignified. You’re that desperate for another man’s autograph – and maybe some drops of his sweat too – that you’ll romp a kid for it? Besides, Majchrzak isn’t even that good. His career-high ATP ranking is only No. 75, which is hardly worth all the fan-girling.

    The Szczereks have boasted of personally hosting higher ranked players at their estate. Surely it’s better to invite Majchrzak over and let an excited kid have a brief moment with his hero.

    At the end of the day though, it’s just not that big of a deal; people need bigger things to be mad at. There’s even a happy ending, as the kid landed a meet-and-greet with Majchrzak thanks to the viral video.

    So he got his participation trophy in the end. But maybe that’s not such a good thing? Coddled children don’t exactly have the makings of a future CEO.

  • Europe is a paper tiger

    Europe is a paper tiger

    “The purpose of NATO,” Lord Hastings Ismay, the alliance’s first secretary general, once quipped, was “to keep the Americans in, the Russians out, and the Germans down.” That formula defined Europe’s security for decades, and it worked because US power anchored the alliance. But as President Donald Trump’s administration demands its European allies carry their share of the burden, shows little appetite for sending troops to Europe and worries more about the Southeast Asian theater, Europeans are being forced to confront their lack of political will for their own security, underinvestment in defense and dwindling public appetite to fight for their country. 

    Following the meeting with President Donald Trump at the White House, discussions among European leaders and Volodymyr Zelensky began on potential security guarantees for Ukraine, should a peace settlement with Russia be achieved. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni described the proposition similar to NATO’s “Article 5-like” framework, a collective commitment that would assemble a coalition of the willing to deploy European troops. Reportedly, plans envision European states taking a lead in ground deployment, while the United States would focus on providing air support, logistical assistance and other non-combat roles.

    “Nobody believes that NATO countries would join the war. So, the promise of a NATO Article 5 is a red herring,” Matthew Savill, director of military sciences at the London-based Royal United Services Institute told The Spectator. “They talk about air policing, but what does that mean? Are you going to shoot down Russian jets?”

    That goes to the heart of the issue: would a European force genuinely deter Moscow, or merely create the appearance of resolve?

    During the Cold War, deterrence stood where troops stood. More than 300,000 US troops were stationed across Europe, on the ground in Germany (250,000) and elsewhere, ready to fight if the Soviet Union moved west. By the time Russia launched its full-scale war in Ukraine in 2022, that number had dwindled to about 60,000.

    As the Western European nations prospered through the 1960s and 70s, defense budgets rarely matched economic growth, and after the Soviet collapse in the 1990s, spending plummeted further. Only a handful of countries, such as France, the UK and Poland, kept spending close to NATO’s 2 percent target. Others including Germany, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands let defense spending fall to just 1 percent of GDP. Decades of neglect left the industry on the continent scrambling. Arms industries were neglected, with little investment in air and naval power, and NATO’s eastern flank continues to rely on Washington’s backbone.

    “We decided that we weren’t going to face a major war,” Savill explained. 

    In Europe tens of billions of euros were redirected each year to other priorities, particularly social welfare. Germany alone saved more than €20 billion annually compared with what it would have spent at higher levels of military investment. 

    “If tomorrow Russia would invade NATO, the only army that would be ready to fight is Turkish,” a Ukrainian senior official who spoke on the condition of anonymity told The Spectator. “All the other ones are good for parades, not for real war.”

    The continent is now playing catch up. The European Union announced that it will mobilize €800 billion for defense investments, a plan Brussels wants to spread over four years through higher deficits, joint borrowing and redirected EU funds. Germany voted for historic military investments, while Italy ramps up arms production and Poland wants to double its military. 

    “The big problem Europeans have is that when you point at something they have and say, ‘oh, this is quite good,’ they just don’t have much of it, and much of it isn’t at a high level of readiness. It takes time before you can deploy it or use it. France and the UK have maintained very good armed forces, but they are small,” Savill points out.

    At the NATO summit in the Hague in June of this year, NATO allies agreed to raise defense spending to 5 percent. But few leaders are willing to touch the social spending that makes up one-fifth of the EU budget.

    “It turns out that Germany has lots of jets that don’t fly. Their army isn’t that deployable,” Savill said. “It will take several years to ramp production back up. Rheinmetall can’t suddenly produce shells, and MBDA can’t suddenly produce missiles. The trend has been reversed, but it will take years.” 

    Much of Europe spends more than twice as much on defense as Russia, but money doesn’t translate into military strength. Moscow pays its soldiers far less and maintains equipment at a fraction of Western costs. When adjusted for what each side can actually buy, the picture flips: Russia fields almost five times the military power of France’s defense budget, and six times that of Germany or the UK.

    Budgets and capabilities are not Europe’s only challenge. Public spirit is just as much of a problem. Gallup polls show the EU with the lowest readiness worldwide: only a third of citizens say they would fight for their country while non-EU states report far higher levels – a vulnerability money alone cannot solve. 

    As Europe begins to learn from its mistakes, Russia already has. It has rebuilt its military industry and armed forces, while fighting a high-intensity war. By late 2024, more than 600,000 Russian soldiers were on the frontlines, nearly double the initial invasion force. Moscow’s defense industry has been put on a war footing, opening new factories and converting civilian production lines. This has allowed Russia to replace its battlefield losses: in one year alone, it’s expected to roll out 1,500 tanks, 3,000 armored vehicles, and 200 Iskander missiles, while producing 250,000 artillery shells every month. Stockpile three times greater than the US and Europe combined. 

    Zelensky, fearing another onslaught, insists on 100,000 foreign troops in Ukraine under any settlement. Military arithmetic makes that impossible. A front-line force requires three times as many in reserve and support. Europe might muster 10,000 quickly but it would be a political gesture more than a shield and would still rely heavily on US enablers. The 100,000 Zelensky wants would take months, if not years, and expose shortages in weapons and ammunition, and be unsustainable without Washington.

    Germany and Italy have already ruled out deployments. Britain and France may be willing, but their forces are too small for long-term operations. The Europeans hope to resolve the dilemma with so-called “tripwire” assurances which entails that even small deployment on the Ukrainian soil, can trigger larger intervention if attacked, preferably from the United States. 

    With its grand claims to be able to protect Ukraine, Europe has become a paper tiger. And Putin is very well aware. However guarantees are dressed up, they will rest not on Brussels but on Washington, and on a president whose stance, observers note, often shifts depending on who spoke to him last.

  • Mexico seethes over cartels, ‘gringos’ and migrants

    Mexico seethes over cartels, ‘gringos’ and migrants

    Mexico has been rocked by massive popular protests as the Hispanic world’s largest nation seethes with a fizzing cocktail of grievances ranging from the fate of 130,000 people who have ‘disappeared’ in the country’s drug wars, to discontent over the ‘gentrification’ of Mexico City in a bid to attract tourists.

    Hundreds of thousands of people marched in the streets of the country’s major cities on Saturday, many carrying portraits of loved ones who have vanished since 2007 when the then President Felipe Calderon launched a “war on drugs” to combat the narcotics cartels who increasingly dominated the nation of 130 million people.

    Since then, vast numbers of people have “disappeared”; most are thought to have been murdered and buried in mass graves for resisting the cartels, while others are said to have been forcibly recruited by the gangs and moved away from their families. Some are believed to have died at the hands of Mexico’s police and security forces. The death and missing toll far surpasses the number of victims of other Latin American slaughters like the 40,000 who died in Guatemala’s civil war of the 1960s to the 1990s, or the 30,000 who disappeared in the “dirty war” waged by Argentina’s military junta against the Left in the 1970s.

    But the “disappeared” of the drugs wars is not the only crisis confronting Mexico. Earlier in the week demonstrations erupted in some of the ritzier quarters of Mexico City – the world’s most populous metropolis – as residents protested against the gentrification of the city to try and lure foreign tourists.

    Bars and coffee shops catering to foreign visitors were invaded by the protesters, some yelling “Gringos out!” The protests were a sign of popular discontent among poorer Mexicans that their needs are being neglected by the government and city authorities in favor of the interests of tourists.

    A third source of popular anger is the problem of migration. Mexico is the final frontier for millions of migrants hoping to cross the border in search of a new life in the U.S. As such, the northern provinces are flooded with migrants on the move, both from Mexico itself and other Latin American states such as Venezuela and Colombia.

    Millions crossed the border under the Biden administration, but since Donald Trump became President this year he has taken steps to close the border as well as detaining illicit and undocumented migrants living in the U.S. illegally – deporting many back to Mexico where their presence adds to the country’s social woes.

    It all adds up to a huge headache for the leftist government of President Claudia Sheinbaum – elected just over a year ago as Mexico’s first ever woman and first ever Jewish President.
    So far, Sheinbaum has won praise for the adroit way she has handled the temperamental Trump. In months of delicate negotiations she won the nickname “the Trump whisperer” for her skill in blunting Trump’s threats to impose swinging tariffs on his southern neighbor, but there are signs that their mutual grudging respect may be about to end.

    Trump has deployed 10,000 troops along the Mexican border to enforce his anti-migrants line; and he has declared Mexican drugs cartels to be terrorist organizations. In addition the President has withdrawn the visitor visas for several Mexican politicians and renewed his tariff threats. Porfirio Diaz, the dictator who ruled Mexico with a rod of iron in the late 19th century once famously sighed: “Poor Mexico! So far from God and so close to the United States”. Mexico may soon come to learn the truth of that saying all over again.